Anonymous Hacks UK Government, Plans Weekly Attacks

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In what may turn out to be a weekly event, the Anonymous
hacktivists followed through with their promise to hack the
United Kingdom's Home Office website Saturday to protest the
possible extradition of three accused U.K. criminals to the U.S.

The website of the Home Office, the government department
responsible for domestic security, was inaccessible for several
hours on Saturday night (April 7) due to Anonymous'
denial-of-service attack. Anonymous also caused a similar
disruption on the website of the British prime minister and the
Ministry of Justice site, the security firm
Sophos reported. All three sites are running now.

Days before the denial-of-service attacks, Anonymous warned on
its AnonOpUK Twitter feed that it was planning the digital
protest for April 7 and 9 p.m. GMT.

Anonymous' successful attack on the U.K. government is the first
offensive in " Operation
Trial at Home," the activists' stand against the European
Arrest Warrant that could lead to the extradition to the U.S. of
Gary McKinnon, Christopher Tappin and Richard O'Dwyer, three
suspected U.K. cybercriminals.

(The extradition of O'Dwyer, the 23-year-old creator of
TVShack.net who was arrested for hosting copyrighted material on
his site, has been approved.)

These high-profile hacks may be a recurring event, Anonymous
said. In a tweet from April 4, the group wrote, "Expect a DDoS
(distributed denial-of-service) every Saturday on the UK
Government sites," BBC News reported.

Graham Cluley from Sophos called Anonymous' actions "an audacious
move," especially considering that "other hacktivists who have
launched DDoS attacks against websites belonging to British
authorities have been arrested in recent history, and are
currently facing trial."

Those suspected criminals include
Ryan Cleary, a 19-year-old from Essex, England, who was
arrested last summer in connection with carrying out attacks
against the Serious Organized Crime Agency while working with the
LulzSec hacking group.